cross-posted from: https://slrpnk.net/post/38835281

This one comes with two content warnings.

1. This documentary contains some language that is today considered outdated
2. This documentary discusses troubling topics such as physical threats of gun violence

Understanding the outdated language in this documentary in 2026

It was produced in 1999 by people struggling to survive in the wake of the AIDS crisis and without any of the communal support that we can sometimes take for granted today. Some of the terminology used in this little documentary are to our today's ears outdated. In the introduction the narrator references "transexuals" when we today would almost certainly use the term "transgender people" in respect for that the transgender experience is any experience that a person has through the lens of identifying as a different gender than their presented sex at birth.

I want to make it abundantly clear that in this community (spoonbreadtube@slrpnk.net ), we believe:

• Trans men are men
• Trans women are women
• Nonbinary people are real and valid
• Intersex people do not need to be medically corrected unless that is what they choose for themselves
• No one's identity is defined by surgery or lack thereof, but instead on their own experienced identity

We request that you respect others and their lived experiences regardless of what your preconception of who they should be are. Please look at them with both your observing eye and your assessing eye and meet them where they are.

I also please ask that people be cognizant of that our modern day understandings of the world we exist in does not always match our past experiences. 27 years have passed since this documentary was produced. In that time the primary setting for this documentary, Harlan County Kentucky, 16% of the county still awaits its first access to the internet.

That said, I would like to also point out that in 1999 the people making this documentary were using LGBTQ terminology, putting them considerably ahead of most of the rest of the country who came around on that about 10 years later. The point I'm trying to make is that information that really matters reaches people at different times. I do not want anyone looking at this and seeing the backwards Appalachian stereotype without also taking a moment to see the ways that this group was also progressive.

Understanding the threats of gun violence

I also do not want to say any of that and belittle any of the hardcore trauma that is discussed in this documentary. Lord knows I've known people who experienced some of that themselves. One of my classmates growing up moved to my hometown after his mom threatened to shoot him dead where he stood for being bisexual. The main thing I want to convey to people is how much strength it takes for anyone to be themselves. It can be easy to take this for granted, but across the world people who identify as queer live in defiance of hierarchies that threaten them. I am incredibly proud to count myself amongst that number even if I live in a part of Appalachia that is more accepting of me than has been the norm in Eastern Kentucky.

All of that said, me and some friends once went to Rowan County to get a marriage license because sometimes joy is an act of defiance and we needed the county clerk there to see that we're unbreakable.